OP,
What do you think of Yoji Shinkawa as an and his work?
He probably has my favourite artstyle in the industry
What do you think of Yoji Shinkawa as an and his work?
He probably has my favourite artstyle in the industry
-
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I've been an artist in videogames for 14+ years. I'm between jobs and have a week off. Ask Me (mostly) Anything
- Thread starter XaviConcept
- Start date
Um... Is it okay to ask a second question? haha.
If so- sorry if this has already been asked but how did you develop your own style?
For me when it comes to drawing I'm still stuck in that generic anime phase. It's not bad to have an anime-like style but when I look at my art even I go: "Okay but what did I bring to the table?" Been at that phase for about what feels like 10 years now.
If so- sorry if this has already been asked but how did you develop your own style?
For me when it comes to drawing I'm still stuck in that generic anime phase. It's not bad to have an anime-like style but when I look at my art even I go: "Okay but what did I bring to the table?" Been at that phase for about what feels like 10 years now.
It's mostly in Korean. But just by going through the sketches and drawing a lot of very cool stuff is explained. This thing changed everything for me:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/116341985204628/
Wish I had something this profound for color.
13th Batch
OP
OP
13th Batch
Im sure they will eventually, I think they rushed their way through the IP and once the team was completely disbanded they just altogether abandoned the series. Wanting DS3 to compete with the Call of Duty crowd was a pretty bad mood, imo. You isolate your original fans and dont gain new ones because CoD players will just ... keep playing CoD.
If Viosceral had stuck around, I could see a comeback sooner than later, as it is now ... eh, probably not anytime soon.
You ... are not wrong :)
Dayum, thats quite the student portfolio! You definitely have a good shot at landing a job after your graduate, however, competition is pretty fierce. I think your use of lighting is pretty high contrast right now which I totally understand for your Atlantis piece but in the early stages I actually liked your use of color early on and you lost some of it during your final polish. Out of your references, I think you need to study Dishonored 2 more closely, I like Xaviers breakdown of it here, I always prefer when shadows have a color tint to them instead of going more black. Using color theory more strongly will help both your realistic work and your more cartoony efforts
Color and lighting wise, your Zoelie environment is a good example of where you can get a lot better. Look at some of the Overwatch environments, Sunset Overdrive and Tekkkon Kinkreet for visual reference. Your shadows could have a lot more color to it, the tend to extend very far and look more realistic than they need to be, your texture work is also exposed a bit more and just using flat colors isnt working very well for you there.
POverall, your sense of storytelling could be more finely tuned. You added some chaos and puddles to your museum environment, but I still dont have a clear idea of what happened there, I think more exhibits should be broken, I should be able to see water physically leaking into the environment, I think we should see some water damage and some dead creatures splattered on the floor somewhere. Make it seems even more like theres room for discovery, right now everything is very evenly disheveled where you should be thinking in terms of "this corner has lots of damage and the lights went out" while "this one is practically untouched" that way you get the contrast and the viewer will start to be naturally more intrigued
I could go deeper but this isnt the best place for a full portfolio review. I would encourage you to try more styles, though! Something in the Monster Hunter World vein, perhaps? Maybe Gravity Rush 2?
Personal taste goes a long way and also level of execution. I think Hollow Knight looks GREAT and it wouldnt look better if it was traditional pixelart, same with Odin Sphere, its the perfect marriage of styles in order to produce something unique. You gotta cater your artstyle to the talents of the developer, so I dont often think they should have done something different because then it just wouldnt be the same developer, you know?
That being said, King of Fighters XIII was the pinnacle of the series art and the new 3D stuff is still nowhere near their level of excellence and anytime I hear people comp[lain that they can "see the sprites" I want to slap them. I get similarly angry when people dont like a more stylized effort because "it looks like a flash game" both camps make me angry .. you just gotta learn how to deal
A 2D Mario sprite in HD could look like a million different things, depends on who you put to the task
Havent tried Dreams yet, Im not super into "make your own stuff" games, I'll just go draw my own thing, you know?
Engines are not nearly the be all end all solution non devs think it is. Just because you have a giant, awesome kitchen it doesnt mean youre goingg to make awesome food, right? Same with engines, they enable possibilities but its up to the developer to be able to get the engine to work in their favor.
Tools are often not improved because the stakeholders cannot stand the time it takes to work on tools. Why? Because tools development is invisible to higher ups, its "let us build the tech and youll see results in 3 months" and thats usually not acceptable, they need to see progress in a tangible manner ASAP. Also, the iphone 11 having crazy ass resolution, forcing us tio display giant textures that eat the entire VRAM budget has very little to do with the engine
Eh, thats a nice compliment but I dunno about that LOL
Thank you! Its been pretty fun being able to let loose. Hopefully some people are learning some shit
Merging these two, this is a big one, haha
It seems like you have gotten enough schooling and, without seeing your work its hard to make an accurate assesment. However, I can share what has worked for me. I made a few images to help illustrate a process Ive used in the past
Lets say I drawthis image, ready to start coloring but I have nooo fucking clue how to start
What I do here is look at other pictures I like and borrow their color scheme! Its ok! Use it to learn and get started, literally color pick the main colors as a place to learn what good colors are
For this, right now Im obsessed with Sara Alfageeh so lets use this awesome piece of hers as a starting place for colors
btw I highly recommend just using one or two brushes, dont go crazy with your brush use, master the basic round brush!
As you can see I picked the key colors and put them in the places where they would fit naturally, thankfully I was right and these are great choices for this piece, then its just a matter of putting some work in and actually paint a bit more. This is just five minutes, Im not gonna repaint this whole thing just for a tutorial lol
As you get more experience, then you start branching out and you make the image your own. This process is great to build your own internal library of colors, learning what to use for highlights, shadows, etc is super important. I also recommend painting with very broad strokes at the beginning, making sure youre zoomed out!
For me, this is how the piece ended up when I originally made it (I didnt reference any colors for this one, btw, the ref before was just as an example)
This is also the advice I always, always give when choosing colors, CHANGE YOUR HUES AS YOU GO DARKER OR BRIGHTER
So yeah, this is just one way to get better. I always advise people to keep their hot and cool contrast in mind. When it comes to value, I suggest having a top layer set to the COLOR layer style and filled in BLACK. With that youll have a perfect grayscale image (do not ever use hue and saturation to check your values, its not accurate!) Its a great way to quickly check your values on the fly
I hope this helps!
I use Unity the most, however due to the kinds of games I work on I barely ever get to use any of the cool shit because the aret budget gets used up real fucking quick when you have 12 characters on screen at a time, etc
Unreal 4 seems really dope, Ive only messed with it every now and then but I really respect it
Its fucking amazing!
It definitely requires a specific workflow and it also requires a LOT of buy-in from the studio leads, being able to risk such a large investment ahead of time. This industry is so goddamn risk averse in AAA that it drives me nuts. I have a ton of respect for what that team accomplished and I hope its something they can continue to build on moving forward
Not at all! At EA, our Junior VFX artist just turned 40 and hes fairly new to the industry, he spent his 20's working at Sunglass Hut. Show that you have value and youll make it in
A Profanity Filter as part of the OS sure would be nice! Did you know that there isnt a standard solution for that yet and that every team basically needs to make their own for EVERY GAME? Its ridiculous, a standard OS based subtitles solution would also be VERY welcome
Having more systems built into the console are always helkpful but it can also limit the developer a fair bit so I get why some things are the way they are. As a developer its also hard not to think of console features as a user though, so when navigating the OS is super slow and install times take forever or the fan is super loud, that also affects how the user experience varies from game to game
Ugh, yeah. Persona 4 Golden too, they had these nice, artsy moody backgrounds and then replaced them with photoreal bushes and shit, like, whyyy would you do that.
Like I said, I do have a NSFW account and am a hard believer that people need their horny outlet as long as its healthy and within the realm of fantasy. Porn will always find a way so I wish we could find more streamlined, healthier ways to integrate into our lives without having to find ass backwards ways to find it. Whenever one avenue closes, another one will open up, its kind of annoying but its inevitable. Theres a lot of hypocrisy going on from these platform holders re: adult entertainment
Things are great! Like most we are dealing with this situation one day at a time :)
Crowdfunding is definitely a new avenue and it has found a semi healthy lane to live in ... but its had its obstacles, for sure! One thing I noticed early on is that it was on full display how game makers are NOT GOOD AT DEADLINES EH, MAYBE PRODUCERS ARENT SO EVIL AFTER ALL EH. There was, and is, a lot of promising the entire moon in order to get stuff funded and it makes me sad knowing that fans will fall for it. 90% of KS projects I see, I know they will be delayed by at least a year and most of the stretch goals are bullshit. It makes me mad knowing what the true costs of thing is and then I see some idiot promising a Switch port for 50k. Its really fucking unethical and naive
As far as communication styles go, it entirely depends on the teams policies, culture and type of game youre making. For EA and Star Wars we cant divulge a ton of stuu, mostly due to the contracts we have in place and also because oftentimes there is such a thing as too much information that people will continue to misunderstand and weaponize against you
Plus, as you can probably tell, the more time I spend talking to you, the less time I have to actually, you know, make the game. I get very, very wary at giving the consumer more ownership over the product I make and the more you communicate the more of a sense of ownership you give them, just look at most Destiny threads, people there legit think they know how to make the game better than the people making it. For smaller games I think it can be pretty healthy to communicate with the fans and as long as its not a live game you can make some meaningful relationships, SPryfox has always been very open about their development pipeline and it has worked pretty well for them
Im sure they will eventually, I think they rushed their way through the IP and once the team was completely disbanded they just altogether abandoned the series. Wanting DS3 to compete with the Call of Duty crowd was a pretty bad mood, imo. You isolate your original fans and dont gain new ones because CoD players will just ... keep playing CoD.
If Viosceral had stuck around, I could see a comeback sooner than later, as it is now ... eh, probably not anytime soon.
You ... are not wrong :)
Dayum, thats quite the student portfolio! You definitely have a good shot at landing a job after your graduate, however, competition is pretty fierce. I think your use of lighting is pretty high contrast right now which I totally understand for your Atlantis piece but in the early stages I actually liked your use of color early on and you lost some of it during your final polish. Out of your references, I think you need to study Dishonored 2 more closely, I like Xaviers breakdown of it here, I always prefer when shadows have a color tint to them instead of going more black. Using color theory more strongly will help both your realistic work and your more cartoony efforts
Color and lighting wise, your Zoelie environment is a good example of where you can get a lot better. Look at some of the Overwatch environments, Sunset Overdrive and Tekkkon Kinkreet for visual reference. Your shadows could have a lot more color to it, the tend to extend very far and look more realistic than they need to be, your texture work is also exposed a bit more and just using flat colors isnt working very well for you there.
POverall, your sense of storytelling could be more finely tuned. You added some chaos and puddles to your museum environment, but I still dont have a clear idea of what happened there, I think more exhibits should be broken, I should be able to see water physically leaking into the environment, I think we should see some water damage and some dead creatures splattered on the floor somewhere. Make it seems even more like theres room for discovery, right now everything is very evenly disheveled where you should be thinking in terms of "this corner has lots of damage and the lights went out" while "this one is practically untouched" that way you get the contrast and the viewer will start to be naturally more intrigued
I could go deeper but this isnt the best place for a full portfolio review. I would encourage you to try more styles, though! Something in the Monster Hunter World vein, perhaps? Maybe Gravity Rush 2?
Personal taste goes a long way and also level of execution. I think Hollow Knight looks GREAT and it wouldnt look better if it was traditional pixelart, same with Odin Sphere, its the perfect marriage of styles in order to produce something unique. You gotta cater your artstyle to the talents of the developer, so I dont often think they should have done something different because then it just wouldnt be the same developer, you know?
That being said, King of Fighters XIII was the pinnacle of the series art and the new 3D stuff is still nowhere near their level of excellence and anytime I hear people comp[lain that they can "see the sprites" I want to slap them. I get similarly angry when people dont like a more stylized effort because "it looks like a flash game" both camps make me angry .. you just gotta learn how to deal
A 2D Mario sprite in HD could look like a million different things, depends on who you put to the task
Havent tried Dreams yet, Im not super into "make your own stuff" games, I'll just go draw my own thing, you know?
Engines are not nearly the be all end all solution non devs think it is. Just because you have a giant, awesome kitchen it doesnt mean youre goingg to make awesome food, right? Same with engines, they enable possibilities but its up to the developer to be able to get the engine to work in their favor.
Tools are often not improved because the stakeholders cannot stand the time it takes to work on tools. Why? Because tools development is invisible to higher ups, its "let us build the tech and youll see results in 3 months" and thats usually not acceptable, they need to see progress in a tangible manner ASAP. Also, the iphone 11 having crazy ass resolution, forcing us tio display giant textures that eat the entire VRAM budget has very little to do with the engine
Eh, thats a nice compliment but I dunno about that LOL
Thank you! Its been pretty fun being able to let loose. Hopefully some people are learning some shit
Merging these two, this is a big one, haha
It seems like you have gotten enough schooling and, without seeing your work its hard to make an accurate assesment. However, I can share what has worked for me. I made a few images to help illustrate a process Ive used in the past
Lets say I drawthis image, ready to start coloring but I have nooo fucking clue how to start
What I do here is look at other pictures I like and borrow their color scheme! Its ok! Use it to learn and get started, literally color pick the main colors as a place to learn what good colors are
For this, right now Im obsessed with Sara Alfageeh so lets use this awesome piece of hers as a starting place for colors
btw I highly recommend just using one or two brushes, dont go crazy with your brush use, master the basic round brush!
As you can see I picked the key colors and put them in the places where they would fit naturally, thankfully I was right and these are great choices for this piece, then its just a matter of putting some work in and actually paint a bit more. This is just five minutes, Im not gonna repaint this whole thing just for a tutorial lol
As you get more experience, then you start branching out and you make the image your own. This process is great to build your own internal library of colors, learning what to use for highlights, shadows, etc is super important. I also recommend painting with very broad strokes at the beginning, making sure youre zoomed out!
For me, this is how the piece ended up when I originally made it (I didnt reference any colors for this one, btw, the ref before was just as an example)
This is also the advice I always, always give when choosing colors, CHANGE YOUR HUES AS YOU GO DARKER OR BRIGHTER
So yeah, this is just one way to get better. I always advise people to keep their hot and cool contrast in mind. When it comes to value, I suggest having a top layer set to the COLOR layer style and filled in BLACK. With that youll have a perfect grayscale image (do not ever use hue and saturation to check your values, its not accurate!) Its a great way to quickly check your values on the fly
I hope this helps!
I use Unity the most, however due to the kinds of games I work on I barely ever get to use any of the cool shit because the aret budget gets used up real fucking quick when you have 12 characters on screen at a time, etc
Unreal 4 seems really dope, Ive only messed with it every now and then but I really respect it
Its fucking amazing!
It definitely requires a specific workflow and it also requires a LOT of buy-in from the studio leads, being able to risk such a large investment ahead of time. This industry is so goddamn risk averse in AAA that it drives me nuts. I have a ton of respect for what that team accomplished and I hope its something they can continue to build on moving forward
Not at all! At EA, our Junior VFX artist just turned 40 and hes fairly new to the industry, he spent his 20's working at Sunglass Hut. Show that you have value and youll make it in
A Profanity Filter as part of the OS sure would be nice! Did you know that there isnt a standard solution for that yet and that every team basically needs to make their own for EVERY GAME? Its ridiculous, a standard OS based subtitles solution would also be VERY welcome
Having more systems built into the console are always helkpful but it can also limit the developer a fair bit so I get why some things are the way they are. As a developer its also hard not to think of console features as a user though, so when navigating the OS is super slow and install times take forever or the fan is super loud, that also affects how the user experience varies from game to game
Ugh, yeah. Persona 4 Golden too, they had these nice, artsy moody backgrounds and then replaced them with photoreal bushes and shit, like, whyyy would you do that.
I have read some concerns about artist doing erotic art about the recent policy changes in digital platforms hosting such content. Patreon, Tumblr and another site I don't remember the name. A relevant article:
Patreon continues to crack down on NSFW content creators
Earlier this month, the crowdfunding site Patreon cracked down on its NSFW content policy. It seems the crowdfunding site has now taken a step further.thenextweb.com
As an artist what is your opinion of this and do you worry this could lead to further consequences in artistic freedom and passion?
Like I said, I do have a NSFW account and am a hard believer that people need their horny outlet as long as its healthy and within the realm of fantasy. Porn will always find a way so I wish we could find more streamlined, healthier ways to integrate into our lives without having to find ass backwards ways to find it. Whenever one avenue closes, another one will open up, its kind of annoying but its inevitable. Theres a lot of hypocrisy going on from these platform holders re: adult entertainment
Things are great! Like most we are dealing with this situation one day at a time :)
Crowdfunding is definitely a new avenue and it has found a semi healthy lane to live in ... but its had its obstacles, for sure! One thing I noticed early on is that it was on full display how game makers are NOT GOOD AT DEADLINES EH, MAYBE PRODUCERS ARENT SO EVIL AFTER ALL EH. There was, and is, a lot of promising the entire moon in order to get stuff funded and it makes me sad knowing that fans will fall for it. 90% of KS projects I see, I know they will be delayed by at least a year and most of the stretch goals are bullshit. It makes me mad knowing what the true costs of thing is and then I see some idiot promising a Switch port for 50k. Its really fucking unethical and naive
As far as communication styles go, it entirely depends on the teams policies, culture and type of game youre making. For EA and Star Wars we cant divulge a ton of stuu, mostly due to the contracts we have in place and also because oftentimes there is such a thing as too much information that people will continue to misunderstand and weaponize against you
Plus, as you can probably tell, the more time I spend talking to you, the less time I have to actually, you know, make the game. I get very, very wary at giving the consumer more ownership over the product I make and the more you communicate the more of a sense of ownership you give them, just look at most Destiny threads, people there legit think they know how to make the game better than the people making it. For smaller games I think it can be pretty healthy to communicate with the fans and as long as its not a live game you can make some meaningful relationships, SPryfox has always been very open about their development pipeline and it has worked pretty well for them
Thanks for your insight Raging Spaniard! Very interesting read for sure.
Couple of questions:
Of the games that you've worked on, which are/we're your favorite to play? Any games that you couldn't wait to play while at work or even at home after work?
Sounds like your making a move to Spain. What's your general feeling on the games industry there? Is it bustling or still small? I'm originally from Portugal myself so I always try to buy games from Iberian studios.
Thanks again!
Couple of questions:
Of the games that you've worked on, which are/we're your favorite to play? Any games that you couldn't wait to play while at work or even at home after work?
Sounds like your making a move to Spain. What's your general feeling on the games industry there? Is it bustling or still small? I'm originally from Portugal myself so I always try to buy games from Iberian studios.
Thanks again!
So many interesting bits and pieces in this thread, thanks for answering mine and others questions Raging Spaniard
I wasn't expecting as much insight into game development and this is very useful to highlight on this forum.
I wasn't expecting as much insight into game development and this is very useful to highlight on this forum.
Thanks! I'll definitely check it out, making my way through it.
WOW Xavier, you delivered above and beyond expectations! Many thanks, I'll definitely put your tips in practice soon.13th Batch
...
Merging these two, this is a big one, haha
It seems like you have gotten enough schooling and, without seeing your work its hard to make an accurate assesment. However, I can share what has worked for me. I made a few images to help illustrate a process Ive used in the past
Lets say I drawthis image, ready to start coloring but I have nooo fucking clue how to start
What I do here is look at other pictures I like and borrow their color scheme! Its ok! Use it to learn and get started, literally color pick the main colors as a place to learn what good colors are
For this, right now Im obsessed with Sara Alfageeh so lets use this awesome piece of hers as a starting place for colors
btw I highly recommend just using one or two brushes, dont go crazy with your brush use, master the basic round brush!
As you can see I picked the key colors and put them in the places where they would fit naturally, thankfully I was right and these are great choices for this piece, then its just a matter of putting some work in and actually paint a bit more. This is just five minutes, Im not gonna repaint this whole thing just for a tutorial lol
As you get more experience, then you start branching out and you make the image your own. This process is great to build your own internal library of colors, learning what to use for highlights, shadows, etc is super important. I also recommend painting with very broad strokes at the beginning, making sure youre zoomed out!
For me, this is how the piece ended up when I originally made it (I didnt reference any colors for this one, btw, the ref before was just as an example)
This is also the advice I always, always give when choosing colors, CHANGE YOUR HUES AS YOU GO DARKER OR BRIGHTER
So yeah, this is just one way to get better. I always advise people to keep their hot and cool contrast in mind. When it comes to value, I suggest having a top layer set to the COLOR layer style and filled in BLACK. With that youll have a perfect grayscale image (do not ever use hue and saturation to check your values, its not accurate!) Its a great way to quickly check your values on the fly
I hope this helps!
A (hopefully) quick one: what do you mean when you say "because the art budget gets used up real fucking quick". How are budgets assigned in a videogame?
Hola Raging Spaniard, thank you answering, it's really interesting. You've talked about remasters and I wanted your your opinion on Lizardcube work? Do you think it's better to change the art direction while trying to retain the atmosphere of the original game if you were doing a remake or a sequel? Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap is fantastic and I love what they're doing for Streets of Rage 4.
What type of graphics and or physics/AI can we expect with the new generations of systems launching this year? Post vids or gifs please.
Thanks and good luck (:
Thanks and good luck (:
14th Batch
OP
OP
14th Batch
Such is the struggle! Its specially crazy for you two, you deserve a lot of respect and I hope things are going well during this crazy time!
A ton! In terms of game art: Yoshida, Amano, Nomura, Akiman, Daigo, Yusuke Naora, Snakepixel, Bengus Edayan, Nishimura, Jen Zee, Fellipe Martens, Pascal Blanche, Justin Cherry (Nephelomancer), Kekai Kotaki, Shinkawa, Gez Fry, Peet Cooper, Grace Liu and a lot more, especially unnamed people, lots of animators too, especially at places like FROM, Capcom, Square and Nintendo!
Outside the industry I love Bengal, Moebius, Marcos Mateu Mestre, Kim Jung Gi, Toriyama, Takehiko Inoue, Frank Miller (in his prime), Kentaro Miura, Taiyo Matsumoto, Miyazaki, Katsuya Terada, Juanjo Guarnido, Julia Sarda, Djamila Knopf, Mingjue Helen Chen, jmw327, Sara Alfageeh, incase (NSFW artist), Otomo, Rumiko Takahashi, JAN, ... I can go on and on
As for general inspiration, FLCL is my favorite anime and I love The Pillows because of it, lately Im listening to a ton of Reol and the games that inspire me have been Persona, Monster Hunter, NieR, Dark Souls, BotW and so on. I am also re-reading Bakuman, a manga about making manga by the Death Note team and its super inspiring to me. Movies like Kill Bill were also a giant adrenaline shot for my creativity. When I was a kid, games like Out of this World and Monkey Island were 100% my jam
mmm well I did get fired from EA once, LOL and most studios I have ever worked at have closed, so theres that! Going to The Kubert School only to change my degree to a 2D animation one at the same time as Brother Bear came out and killed the US animation industry for 10+ years was definitely a move that could have backfired. I really, really struggled when I entered casual and I was really, really late in becoming any kind of proficient at coloring. I think realizing at an early age that the amount of sacrifice needed to become a top 1% artist would mean sacrificing my personal life was a good move but I definitely feel like I havent reached my full potential yet.
As for successes, Ive been pretty lucky to be surrounded by great peers and I could always reach to very skilled individuals if I needed advice. Winning a character design contest at Square Enix in the early 2000's was awesome, they event sent me a poster signed by Nomura. Having Capcom pick my entry for the SF IV cover was amazing, as was being published by Udon on one of their Megaman books, Id never thought I would go to Japan, go to a bookstore and find a book I worked on in the shelves, thats crazy
Also the whole Star Wars thing, crazy lucky. I prepared myself for it and did a good job, but getting that chance in the first place and getting the job on the first try while being the only person they interviewed? Theres luck in there
Oh I also was the only texture artist when Tiger 07 was ported from the PS2 to the Wii, that shit was all me baybee
Nah I love the industry. There were dumb people then and theres dumb people now, thats just how it is.
Yeah most devs dont play their own games because most games are NOT GOOD. Remember, what you see on ERA is a tiny, tiny percentage of the actual game industry and Id say that, on average about 50% of the people at a games stuidio dont play games regularly
The only games Ive worked on that I played regularly were Skullgirls and Galaxy of Heroes. I havent even touched Indivisible yet. While we make these games we do play them lik,e all the time and youre just tired of the whole thing when its out, plus, again, its probably not a good game regardless of how good a job you did.
Ya ves, nadie es perfecto
Yeah I love him and I love that his loose style has been so embraced by fans. Its a shame its no longer the cover of the games though, thats a definite step back by the publishers and Kojima himself
Amazing benefits, I missed the hell out of them anytime I wasnt working for EA. Good bonuses, great ways to get stock, really good 401k, amazing insurance, great pet insurance too ... the works, they even have daycare at the bigger studios. Top notch company.
Anime is not a style, I think you already know this.
You gotta look at your sources of inspiration. Then you gotta look at your training. Your style will emerge from mixing the two
Even then, I dont have -one- style, look at my portfolio and you will see its very varied! You dont have to worry about it so much, just draw what you are passionate about, build a large library of visual imagery and always work on your fundamentals, your style should develop natively from there
That being said, if you feel like youre stuck in a rut its probably because you draw the same thing all the time. Try copying a different kind of artist that you like and see if you can replicate their style! Focus on drawing from life for a few months and see what your weakest areas are, maybe its hands or feet? A style is really a stylization of realism so its wholly dependent on how good your fundamentals are. In Japan, most manga creators are master craftsmen first, having done hardcore anatomy training, then, when they mix it with their own taste is how they develop a unique look.
For me, I grew up in Spain with European graphic novels but also while watching anime and reading Marvel comics so I have a natural mix of all three kind of built-in
Skullgirls was definitely my favorite. I always dreamed of making a fighting game and it was a thrill to be a part of it, however small my role was.
The Spanish game industry is still pretty damn new and it has grown to the point where I think I can go and make significant contributions. 5 years ago it still felt like it was mostly run by people who gave zero shits about making games and only wanted to make quick money ... and in a way it still is but now theres a chance to really start growing the talent pool there so we dont all have to leave our home country in order to make it.
Think of it this way, depending on the kind of game youre making, there will be a limit of things you can put on-screen before the engine or codebase goes "thats enough, im dying" thats your budget and, just like allocating items in your Resident Evil inventory, theres a finite amount of shit you can fit in there.
You want realtime lighting? OK, but it takes a large chunk of processing power. Oh, you want 20 characters in screen? well we can no longer light them in real time, so pick one. Oh, you want depth of field? If we add it now, it'll just crash the game, the systems werent build with something that would blur the items in real time, maybe we can fake it with blurry textures? Ok but a blurry texture may take too much of our texture budget. Texture budget? what if I lowered the resolution of the characters by half? Yeah maybe but now we cant have closeups of the characters because they look like shit ... mmm, well maybe we make some room in the budget by simplifying our shadows. What do you mean? Oh, our shadows are actually a duplicate of the mesh with a back texture and scaled down on y. Wait, so were basically showing each character twice? Yep. So, instead of 20 characters on screen WE HAVE FORTY? Yep. WTF??? Hey man, it looks good, you want blob shadows instead? No. Ah ok then, maybe we can lower the density of thew shadows and see if they look ok. Yes pls, do that....
Those are real conversations that happen inside a studio. The budget in mobile is set to the lowest common denominator device you support so eventhough the iPhone 11 is fucking sweet you have to make sure that the game runs on some shitty Android phone because they still account for 30% of the money we make and we cant start making separate graphic settings per phone, it would add way too much overtime for the team. We constantly think about what we can add, what we can cut, what we can improve all while making the game at the same time. Its very, very difficult to make broad changes specially once you have shipped a game, too!
Theyre fantastic. I love that theyre changing stuff with SoR 4 since its a SEQUEL and thats what they should be doing, trying to reach new heights. I also loved what they did with Dragons Trap, just excellent execution all around and they know how to make good art that doesnt get in the way of the gameplay.
It depends if its a focus area for the developers. AI hasnt really improved much over the years as it seems to be less of a focus since multiplayer seems to have taken over. The potential for great innovation is always there and the new tech certainly can enable it, but a developer needs to make it their selling point in order to set a precedent other companies have to follow. No gifs to share but Im sure with raytracing there is going to be some cool shit, I have especially high hopes for companies like Square Enix, FROM and Capcom, that can, and should, showcase their creative flair
Such is the struggle! Its specially crazy for you two, you deserve a lot of respect and I hope things are going well during this crazy time!
A ton! In terms of game art: Yoshida, Amano, Nomura, Akiman, Daigo, Yusuke Naora, Snakepixel, Bengus Edayan, Nishimura, Jen Zee, Fellipe Martens, Pascal Blanche, Justin Cherry (Nephelomancer), Kekai Kotaki, Shinkawa, Gez Fry, Peet Cooper, Grace Liu and a lot more, especially unnamed people, lots of animators too, especially at places like FROM, Capcom, Square and Nintendo!
Outside the industry I love Bengal, Moebius, Marcos Mateu Mestre, Kim Jung Gi, Toriyama, Takehiko Inoue, Frank Miller (in his prime), Kentaro Miura, Taiyo Matsumoto, Miyazaki, Katsuya Terada, Juanjo Guarnido, Julia Sarda, Djamila Knopf, Mingjue Helen Chen, jmw327, Sara Alfageeh, incase (NSFW artist), Otomo, Rumiko Takahashi, JAN, ... I can go on and on
As for general inspiration, FLCL is my favorite anime and I love The Pillows because of it, lately Im listening to a ton of Reol and the games that inspire me have been Persona, Monster Hunter, NieR, Dark Souls, BotW and so on. I am also re-reading Bakuman, a manga about making manga by the Death Note team and its super inspiring to me. Movies like Kill Bill were also a giant adrenaline shot for my creativity. When I was a kid, games like Out of this World and Monkey Island were 100% my jam
mmm well I did get fired from EA once, LOL and most studios I have ever worked at have closed, so theres that! Going to The Kubert School only to change my degree to a 2D animation one at the same time as Brother Bear came out and killed the US animation industry for 10+ years was definitely a move that could have backfired. I really, really struggled when I entered casual and I was really, really late in becoming any kind of proficient at coloring. I think realizing at an early age that the amount of sacrifice needed to become a top 1% artist would mean sacrificing my personal life was a good move but I definitely feel like I havent reached my full potential yet.
As for successes, Ive been pretty lucky to be surrounded by great peers and I could always reach to very skilled individuals if I needed advice. Winning a character design contest at Square Enix in the early 2000's was awesome, they event sent me a poster signed by Nomura. Having Capcom pick my entry for the SF IV cover was amazing, as was being published by Udon on one of their Megaman books, Id never thought I would go to Japan, go to a bookstore and find a book I worked on in the shelves, thats crazy
Also the whole Star Wars thing, crazy lucky. I prepared myself for it and did a good job, but getting that chance in the first place and getting the job on the first try while being the only person they interviewed? Theres luck in there
Oh I also was the only texture artist when Tiger 07 was ported from the PS2 to the Wii, that shit was all me baybee
Nah I love the industry. There were dumb people then and theres dumb people now, thats just how it is.
Yeah most devs dont play their own games because most games are NOT GOOD. Remember, what you see on ERA is a tiny, tiny percentage of the actual game industry and Id say that, on average about 50% of the people at a games stuidio dont play games regularly
The only games Ive worked on that I played regularly were Skullgirls and Galaxy of Heroes. I havent even touched Indivisible yet. While we make these games we do play them lik,e all the time and youre just tired of the whole thing when its out, plus, again, its probably not a good game regardless of how good a job you did.
Ya ves, nadie es perfecto
Yeah I love him and I love that his loose style has been so embraced by fans. Its a shame its no longer the cover of the games though, thats a definite step back by the publishers and Kojima himself
Amazing benefits, I missed the hell out of them anytime I wasnt working for EA. Good bonuses, great ways to get stock, really good 401k, amazing insurance, great pet insurance too ... the works, they even have daycare at the bigger studios. Top notch company.
Anime is not a style, I think you already know this.
You gotta look at your sources of inspiration. Then you gotta look at your training. Your style will emerge from mixing the two
Even then, I dont have -one- style, look at my portfolio and you will see its very varied! You dont have to worry about it so much, just draw what you are passionate about, build a large library of visual imagery and always work on your fundamentals, your style should develop natively from there
That being said, if you feel like youre stuck in a rut its probably because you draw the same thing all the time. Try copying a different kind of artist that you like and see if you can replicate their style! Focus on drawing from life for a few months and see what your weakest areas are, maybe its hands or feet? A style is really a stylization of realism so its wholly dependent on how good your fundamentals are. In Japan, most manga creators are master craftsmen first, having done hardcore anatomy training, then, when they mix it with their own taste is how they develop a unique look.
For me, I grew up in Spain with European graphic novels but also while watching anime and reading Marvel comics so I have a natural mix of all three kind of built-in
Skullgirls was definitely my favorite. I always dreamed of making a fighting game and it was a thrill to be a part of it, however small my role was.
The Spanish game industry is still pretty damn new and it has grown to the point where I think I can go and make significant contributions. 5 years ago it still felt like it was mostly run by people who gave zero shits about making games and only wanted to make quick money ... and in a way it still is but now theres a chance to really start growing the talent pool there so we dont all have to leave our home country in order to make it.
Think of it this way, depending on the kind of game youre making, there will be a limit of things you can put on-screen before the engine or codebase goes "thats enough, im dying" thats your budget and, just like allocating items in your Resident Evil inventory, theres a finite amount of shit you can fit in there.
You want realtime lighting? OK, but it takes a large chunk of processing power. Oh, you want 20 characters in screen? well we can no longer light them in real time, so pick one. Oh, you want depth of field? If we add it now, it'll just crash the game, the systems werent build with something that would blur the items in real time, maybe we can fake it with blurry textures? Ok but a blurry texture may take too much of our texture budget. Texture budget? what if I lowered the resolution of the characters by half? Yeah maybe but now we cant have closeups of the characters because they look like shit ... mmm, well maybe we make some room in the budget by simplifying our shadows. What do you mean? Oh, our shadows are actually a duplicate of the mesh with a back texture and scaled down on y. Wait, so were basically showing each character twice? Yep. So, instead of 20 characters on screen WE HAVE FORTY? Yep. WTF??? Hey man, it looks good, you want blob shadows instead? No. Ah ok then, maybe we can lower the density of thew shadows and see if they look ok. Yes pls, do that....
Those are real conversations that happen inside a studio. The budget in mobile is set to the lowest common denominator device you support so eventhough the iPhone 11 is fucking sweet you have to make sure that the game runs on some shitty Android phone because they still account for 30% of the money we make and we cant start making separate graphic settings per phone, it would add way too much overtime for the team. We constantly think about what we can add, what we can cut, what we can improve all while making the game at the same time. Its very, very difficult to make broad changes specially once you have shipped a game, too!
Theyre fantastic. I love that theyre changing stuff with SoR 4 since its a SEQUEL and thats what they should be doing, trying to reach new heights. I also loved what they did with Dragons Trap, just excellent execution all around and they know how to make good art that doesnt get in the way of the gameplay.
It depends if its a focus area for the developers. AI hasnt really improved much over the years as it seems to be less of a focus since multiplayer seems to have taken over. The potential for great innovation is always there and the new tech certainly can enable it, but a developer needs to make it their selling point in order to set a precedent other companies have to follow. No gifs to share but Im sure with raytracing there is going to be some cool shit, I have especially high hopes for companies like Square Enix, FROM and Capcom, that can, and should, showcase their creative flair
I know it's not a style but I think saying that gives a certain impression in a lot of peoples mind of someone's art. But I digress.
Lots of good advice.
getting into game dev changes your perspective on things no matter where you were at before, like holy fucking shit.
why is this broken? i dunno
how did you fix it? I have no idea just please dont touch anything...dont even breathe *angry C# noises in the background*
did you try this and this? yea like 3 dozen different ways please trust me, it didnt work
How titles like Gears, Uncharterd...fucking Witcher 3 come together is just incredible.
Do you like Star Wars? I have no idea if your work as I haven't played any EA Star Wars game. Just curious.
I have absolutely no artistic skill. Just like that dev who posted on here earlier about wanting to learn music, I'd like to learn how to be an artist even in a limited capacity. I'm still working from home do I don't have as much time unfortunately. Not that I'm complaining.
But...any tips?
Also I love your Chrono Trigger. Would love to see your female take with a Mohawk though!
I have absolutely no artistic skill. Just like that dev who posted on here earlier about wanting to learn music, I'd like to learn how to be an artist even in a limited capacity. I'm still working from home do I don't have as much time unfortunately. Not that I'm complaining.
But...any tips?
Also I love your Chrono Trigger. Would love to see your female take with a Mohawk though!
Great answer, I get it now. Makes total sense when you explain it this way. Really, really, REALLY makes you see each and every game I've played in a different perspective, as some sort of small miracle.
I thought you were talking about budget in a monetary way, and was trying to wrap my head around the concept of "having X amount of money to make art; each character is Y dollars so we can only have a certain amount"... And couldn't even fathom how studios (not indies / freelancers, of course) create games this way.
If you still feel like answering, here's another one: Have you ever worked on a project with a specific "we can't spend more than X dollars / Y months on this or else it won't be profitable"?
15th Batch
OP
OP
15th Batch
Sure, its important to bring it up though, lots of people still dont understand the difference. Hope you found the feedback useful!
Ive seen a lot more people showcase their Scrum Master titles around. Its definitely useful when applying because we do discuss how much experience or knowledge a manager has with agile development tools and its not like you can show a portfolio to show how awesome you are.
Yeah same here, then I get irrationally fucking angry when I see people take them for granted. Makes me feel like a giant failure LOL
Thank you! I worked on Galaxy of Heroes which is the SW mobile game, it has done extremely well, nearing one billion in revenue! We recently released a few Mandalorian characters and I was the art lead on those, but if you play the game you have seen my work and direction all over the place.
I looove Star Wars, like most fans my hype died with the prequels but the new trilogy brought me back ion a serious way. It has been the privilege of a lifetime to be able to work on that agme and the awesome people at Lucasfilm.
If you want to get into audio theres tons of avenues, not just as a composer but as a sound effect artist, foley, etc! Fire up some Unity tutorials and get started, maybe find a small local indie game you can help with? Getting started at ANYTHING is always daunting but theres never been a better time but all the free resources you have available. Best of luck!
Yeah using the term budget always makes non devs think we mean money. In a Q&A for SW we recently said a particular mode would be expensive to make and fans literally thought it was just a money thing ... sigh Obviously money does come in at some point, like if a feature takes 5 people two weeks, thats a lot of cost! Maybe have 2 people over 3 weeks? Much better... but even in that case we talk about the time budget or even number of available cycles per employee. There are many different kinds of budgets and it is hard to keep track, thats why sometimes we simplify it and say a feature/change/fix is "very heavy" or "very expensive" because its taking all of those random bullshit time sync into account
"we can't spend more than X dollars / Y months on this or else it won't be profitable" happens all the time with everything. Every feature in a game is like making a mini videogames, after all. If something takes too long, then it doesnt ship and then it affects how much money we can make. Specially in live this is a very important part of our pipeline we need to carefully leverage when agreeing to do "x" amount of work for a release
This comes off as a question very much in bad faith so Im inclined not to answer .. but eh, fuck it
Are F2P gacha games as a whole, unethical? Yep. Is it ridiculous that $20 in SWGOH barely gets you 5 shards of a character? Yep. Is SWGOH completely playable and better than 95% of the competition when it comes to "here is how much you can achieve without spending money?" Also yep.
I think you may have a bigger problem with the whole concept of Capitalism than SWGOH itself. If you are addicted to spending money on the game, I would highly suggest you get in touch with the support team and get your account deleted. Your statement as a whole is vindictive and reductive so I just cant take it at face value. My conscience is quite clear on this, we made a game that a ton of people enjoy in a healthy manner and the in-game economy reflects the state of the mobile industry which is not something I can fix myself. If people with an addictive personality get sucked in and put their financial future at risk, I would hope they quit the game immediately and seek help.
I would love to read them! Nothing can beat the Iwata Asks archive, though
Sure, its important to bring it up though, lots of people still dont understand the difference. Hope you found the feedback useful!
Ive seen a lot more people showcase their Scrum Master titles around. Its definitely useful when applying because we do discuss how much experience or knowledge a manager has with agile development tools and its not like you can show a portfolio to show how awesome you are.
Yeah same here, then I get irrationally fucking angry when I see people take them for granted. Makes me feel like a giant failure LOL
Thank you! I worked on Galaxy of Heroes which is the SW mobile game, it has done extremely well, nearing one billion in revenue! We recently released a few Mandalorian characters and I was the art lead on those, but if you play the game you have seen my work and direction all over the place.
I looove Star Wars, like most fans my hype died with the prequels but the new trilogy brought me back ion a serious way. It has been the privilege of a lifetime to be able to work on that agme and the awesome people at Lucasfilm.
If you want to get into audio theres tons of avenues, not just as a composer but as a sound effect artist, foley, etc! Fire up some Unity tutorials and get started, maybe find a small local indie game you can help with? Getting started at ANYTHING is always daunting but theres never been a better time but all the free resources you have available. Best of luck!
Yeah using the term budget always makes non devs think we mean money. In a Q&A for SW we recently said a particular mode would be expensive to make and fans literally thought it was just a money thing ... sigh Obviously money does come in at some point, like if a feature takes 5 people two weeks, thats a lot of cost! Maybe have 2 people over 3 weeks? Much better... but even in that case we talk about the time budget or even number of available cycles per employee. There are many different kinds of budgets and it is hard to keep track, thats why sometimes we simplify it and say a feature/change/fix is "very heavy" or "very expensive" because its taking all of those random bullshit time sync into account
"we can't spend more than X dollars / Y months on this or else it won't be profitable" happens all the time with everything. Every feature in a game is like making a mini videogames, after all. If something takes too long, then it doesnt ship and then it affects how much money we can make. Specially in live this is a very important part of our pipeline we need to carefully leverage when agreeing to do "x" amount of work for a release
This comes off as a question very much in bad faith so Im inclined not to answer .. but eh, fuck it
Are F2P gacha games as a whole, unethical? Yep. Is it ridiculous that $20 in SWGOH barely gets you 5 shards of a character? Yep. Is SWGOH completely playable and better than 95% of the competition when it comes to "here is how much you can achieve without spending money?" Also yep.
I think you may have a bigger problem with the whole concept of Capitalism than SWGOH itself. If you are addicted to spending money on the game, I would highly suggest you get in touch with the support team and get your account deleted. Your statement as a whole is vindictive and reductive so I just cant take it at face value. My conscience is quite clear on this, we made a game that a ton of people enjoy in a healthy manner and the in-game economy reflects the state of the mobile industry which is not something I can fix myself. If people with an addictive personality get sucked in and put their financial future at risk, I would hope they quit the game immediately and seek help.
I would love to read them! Nothing can beat the Iwata Asks archive, though
That's exactly the vibe I was thinking of when reading this thread.
A thought that crossed my mind is if EA is such a great company to work at and everyone is cool there, why is their output so abysmal and why do they put out so many blunders that damage their reputation?
How do you usually spend vacation time?
Also, isn't it exhausting learning a new work environment over and over again? I'm curious as to why you'd change studios rather than move up in one or even start one?
Also, isn't it exhausting learning a new work environment over and over again? I'm curious as to why you'd change studios rather than move up in one or even start one?
OP
OP
Not gonna turn these into a batch as the thread is winding down. Thank you all so much for your questions, its been a really fun couple of days!
Well, being very nice and being very good to your employees doesnt have to mean you make all the right decisions about making games, lol Plenty of amazing games are made by horrible people in horrible circumstances, obviously youd like the best environment to make the best games but the two barely ever correlate
Also, if EA's output was abysmal and they put out "so many blunders" the company wouldnt be thriving like it is, dont be like that
I usually travel to Spain for family or to Japan for leisure, been there about 5 times now. I also tend to help out my wife with her art business, a toy company called inki-Drop, as often as I can so I'm a booth helper at many cons anytime theres a 3/4 day weekend... that tends to take a lot of my "vacation time" Now that Im coming back home though, its going to expand my traveling options since I'll be able to see my family much more often! I really want to visit South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, etc and also show my wife were I used to live in Mexico.
Vegging out at home and playing videogames for a week is also nice, though
Changing jobs is exhausting and moving up at my old company was definitely a possibility but ... well, being an Art Director in Sacramento isn't exactly as alluring to me as being an Art Director in Barcelona. Plus, in this business if you want to get a good bump in salary and position, getting a new job is def the way to go, companies tend to take talent for granted and keep them in the same position about as 3x longer than they should have.
Its also good to change things up and keep challenging yourself, that is very much the way I am wired, though. Some people do prefer to stay in one place and grow from there, especially if they already live in a place they want to set roots in ... but thats very subjective. I have moved all over the world since I was a child so this feels natural to me, for some others though, moving from SF to LA is a world shattering event that they may never adapt to
As for starting my own company ... eh. I know how to run an art team, I have no fucking clue how to run a company. That kind of entrepreneur spirit is something you either have or you dont ... and even then you need to find the right partners (a money person, an investor, a producer, a world class engineer willing to risk their career, etc, etc), save a shit ton of money, be able to accept giant risks, like going without health insurance for a considerable time and I am not about that life right now, in the slightest
Well, being very nice and being very good to your employees doesnt have to mean you make all the right decisions about making games, lol Plenty of amazing games are made by horrible people in horrible circumstances, obviously youd like the best environment to make the best games but the two barely ever correlate
Also, if EA's output was abysmal and they put out "so many blunders" the company wouldnt be thriving like it is, dont be like that
I usually travel to Spain for family or to Japan for leisure, been there about 5 times now. I also tend to help out my wife with her art business, a toy company called inki-Drop, as often as I can so I'm a booth helper at many cons anytime theres a 3/4 day weekend... that tends to take a lot of my "vacation time" Now that Im coming back home though, its going to expand my traveling options since I'll be able to see my family much more often! I really want to visit South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, etc and also show my wife were I used to live in Mexico.
Vegging out at home and playing videogames for a week is also nice, though
Changing jobs is exhausting and moving up at my old company was definitely a possibility but ... well, being an Art Director in Sacramento isn't exactly as alluring to me as being an Art Director in Barcelona. Plus, in this business if you want to get a good bump in salary and position, getting a new job is def the way to go, companies tend to take talent for granted and keep them in the same position about as 3x longer than they should have.
Its also good to change things up and keep challenging yourself, that is very much the way I am wired, though. Some people do prefer to stay in one place and grow from there, especially if they already live in a place they want to set roots in ... but thats very subjective. I have moved all over the world since I was a child so this feels natural to me, for some others though, moving from SF to LA is a world shattering event that they may never adapt to
As for starting my own company ... eh. I know how to run an art team, I have no fucking clue how to run a company. That kind of entrepreneur spirit is something you either have or you dont ... and even then you need to find the right partners (a money person, an investor, a producer, a world class engineer willing to risk their career, etc, etc), save a shit ton of money, be able to accept giant risks, like going without health insurance for a considerable time and I am not about that life right now, in the slightest
Well my impression is they only survived so long until now because of Fifa.